Angry Black Woman

Ok so, believe it or not, but I think my title does hold some relevance to this course. I was reading a blog post recently which quoted a woman expressing frustration over societies denial of the right of racial minorities to express collective anger and how it takes a white man, a white man’s privilege, to give voice to her grievances. She said…

“It does not matter what you say. As a woman, as a woman of color, as a woman of size, as a woman with large breasts or no breasts and a lifetime of experience with bucket loads of passion. It does not **** matter.Because unless there is a white guy backing you up, you are an angry ****. Uppity, spirited, “that girl”, the femanazi, the super-libber, the PC chick, the conspiracy theorist…”

That quote got me thinking about the way the Palestinian cause has been taken up by white people and by Jews. The grievances of the Palestinian people are legitimized in the eyes of the western world when they are voiced by someone with white skin. White privilege allows the American College student, (or crazy German activist lady) to protest the condition of the Palestinian people. The Palestinians is not allowed to be passionate, not allowed to be outraged, because this passion is threatening and seen as inciting terrorism. Like the passion of the angry black woman, it upsets the status quo and gives voice to the voiceless. It tends to be much easier for us to digest their voice when it comes from the mouth of someone who looks like us. This situation is a little different than case of the black woman however, because the bad guy in this scenario is a Jew. The arab who voices the grievances of his people is anti-semitic. The westerner who speaks on his behalf is anti-semitic. The Jew who opposes the actions of Israel has internalized anti-semitism and is a self hating Jew. What room is there for critique of the Israeli state is there if Zionism is equal to full support of the policies of the Israeli state? Maybe we would have an easier time hearing a quote we heard all to often yesterday, “I don’t hate Jews, I just hate Zionists,” if we recognized that most of the Palestinians we were exposed to have probably never been exposed to a disenting zionist. It’s the fault of the teachers at Al Quds for not representing this perspective, but it’s the fault of some Jews as well. Not only is critique of Israel more uniformly charged, and more prone to be met with critiques of racism or internalized racism than the critiques of any other group, (not entirely without reason but perhaps to its own detriment) but the Israeli government has made it near impossible for Palestinians to meet a Jew who doesn’t conform to their stereotypes.

Hunter